NAS200 wouldn't boot with USB connected?

I'm running JAC4 on my NAS200, and afternot using it for a while, i forgot my root password. i found directions to reset it by copying a file to the rc.d directory, which i did, and then turned off the unit, and turned it back on. after about 20 minutes i decided something was wrong. i couldn't turn it off, and i couldn't eject the USB external drive (which i was planning on copying files from), so i had to pull the power plug.

i then restarted it (without the USB drive connected), and it started fine.

is there a reason that the firmware can't boot if there's a drive connected to a USB port? is this related only to when using a startup script to reset the root password?

just thought i should put this experience out there in case others are having the same...

The script to reset the root password restarts the NAS after doing its work (and you have to restart the NAS to make it work so 2 restarts total). It takes a while but not 20 minutes. You should hear beeps from the restarts.

If you connect a USB drive while the NAS starts up, it will try to mount it to find an alternative root file system. If a startup script mounts the USB drive and finds one of the "magic" file names, it will try to use it. If you put a file on a USB drive with a "magic" filename but it's not really intended as such, the startup script will fail and the NAS just doesn't continue starting up. This is easy to fix by unplugging the USB drive, starting the NAS and waiting for the second beep before you plug in the USB drive.